Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s3.25

c7.s3.25

One of these hymns is held to be the earliest document explicitly proving the existence of castes in India. It is that which describes how the universe issued in its entirety from the substance of the primitive male, Purusha. The text declares that ‘the Brahman was his mouth, the Rājanya (Kshatriya) his arms, the Vaiśya his thighs’, and that ‘the Śūdra was born from his feet’. By common consent this passage is among the most recent of the venerable collection in which it ranks, but it has profited to some extent by the prestige which attaches to the whole. On the other hand, in order to weigh up and comment on this piece of evidence, scholars have adopted the preconceived idea that the existence of castes must manifest itself in the form of the four castes of the mature system; to my mind, however, nothing could be less warranted.